What Penance do you do on Fridays?

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Brooklyn

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I know there have been several threads on this forum about eating meating on Fridays, and exactly what our Friday obligation is. I understand that while it is no longer considered a mortal sin to eat meat on Fridays, we are to substitute some sort of penance if we do choose to eat meat. I’m a vegetarian, so I definitely have to do something else. I have chosen to fast on this day, eating only one meal at night, and a couple of small snacks (fruit) during the day, and no sweets at all (trust me, that is truly penance for me 😦 ) I figure this is the least I can do in honor of our Lord who gave his life so that we may live.

I’m just curious as to what others have chosen to do on this day. I have actually come to like the idea that it has not been mandated for us by the Church anymore, but left up to each one of us to decide on our own. I realize that the vast majority of present-day Catholics pay absolutely no attention to this (a vast majority of American Catholics don’t even believe in the Real Presence, which is tragic beyond words), but I’m sure a good number on this forum do. If you’re here, you’re probably here because you truly love our Lord and want to do all you can to honor him.

So tell me, what penance do you do on Fridays?

Mary
 
I don’t eat meat on Fridays.

My mother, when she was still alive, heard something that Cardinal O’Connor said about abstaining from meat on Fridays in reparation for abortion.

So, every Friday, she and I would eat non-meat foods such as pasta or seafood.

I continue to do so even after her death.

Another Friday penance I’ve been doing is having just tea and toast for breakfast. I usually have cereal too, but I want to do an extra penance at that meal, too.
 
No meat.

No alcohol.

No mixed drinks (cherry RC I have to mix myself, chocolate milk, cocktails) except juices already mixed.
 
Brooklyn said:
I’m just curious as to what others have chosen to do on this day. I have actually come to like the idea that it has not been mandated for us by the Church anymore, but left up to each one of us to decide on our own. I realize that the vast majority of present-day Catholics pay absolutely no attention to this
.
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So tell me, what penance do you do on Fridays?
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Well…Today I’m taking my kids to swim in the lake.

How would I know as a Catholic who attends Mass and receives the Sacraments, reads Scripture and the Catechism on my own that I should be doing penance on Fridays?

Why is it that when you write this post I feel so incredibly left out and criticized?
I truly want to be a part.
 
graceandglory said:
Well…Today I’m taking my kids to swim in the lake.

How would I know as a Catholic who attends Mass and receives the Sacraments, reads Scripture and the Catechism on my own that I should be doing penance on Fridays?

Why is it that when you write this post I feel so incredibly left out and criticized?
I truly want to be a part.
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Oh, no!! That’s not the idea at all. There is no way of just knowing on your own that any kind of penance is required on Friday. I think your post points to a big fault in how we are now taught in Churches. So many of our homilies are just “feel good” homilies, and they don’t talk about the Cross and suffering, and how important it is for us to join our suffering to the Cross, which is basically what penance on Friday is about. But if you don’t hear about it, how are you suppose to know? Just as each Sunday is like a little Easter, each Friday is like a little Lent, and just as we practice mortification and penance in Lent, so we do each Friday. But as I wrote, I’m afraid you won’t be hearing that from our pulpits.

Here is an interesting quote from Catholic Online:
Even when the US Bishops made it no longer required to abstain from meat on all the other Fridays of the year, they never intended that the Catholic faithful should discontinue this practice. What they hoped was that people would continue to do it out of their love for God and not because they had to, and also to give us an opportunity to deny ourselves in other ways. Friday has never ceased to be a day of penance and self-denial, and abstaining from meat on that day is given first place, because it was on a Friday that our Lord died for our sins. Every Friday is a day to prepare for Sunday – the day that, for us who believe, is Easter every week of the year. And Sunday is never a day of fasting (not even during Lent). It is the glorious Day of the Lord!
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The link:

catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=180

So if you haven’t been doing this, don’t beat yourself up over it.

Mary
 
We don’t eat meat. We used to do other penances but it seemed more like we’d remember toward the end of the day and quick! pick something.

Friday is also the day that we have our assigned hour in the Adoration chapel. Certainly not a penance! but something special that we always do on this day.
 
I think your post points to a big fault in how we are now taught in Churches. So many of our homilies are just “feel good” homilies, and they don’t talk about the Cross and suffering, and how important it is for us to join our suffering to the Cross, which is basically what penance on Friday is about.

I agree - I think we’ve been lacking in the education department. I didn’t know Friday was still a day of penance observance until recently when I was listening to a CD.
 
I don’t eat meat on Fridays, and usually fast for the Holy Father. I also use the discipline.

I’ve wondered how, growing up, I only heard the “you don’t have to abstain from meat anymore,” but not the second part, “put another penance in its place” It was only when I started reading that I found out about it.
 
graceandglory said:
Well…Today I’m taking my kids to swim in the lake.

How would I know as a Catholic who attends Mass and receives the Sacraments, reads Scripture and the Catechism on my own that I should be doing penance on Fridays?

Why is it that when you write this post I feel so incredibly left out and criticized?
I truly want to be a part.
Click to expand...
I wrote to my Bishop and asked him, because I didn’t know for sure whether it was still done or not. He wrote me back and told me that the ordinary penance is to abstain from meat on all Fridays of the year except for the Feast of the Sacred Heart and the Friday in the Octave of Easter. He also said that alternative penances are permitted, except on Good Friday, which is a day of both fasting and abstinence from meat - as is Ash Wednesday.

But apart from asking him, I doubt anyone would have mentioned it to me. For whatever reason, it’s simply not a subject of conversation. I suppose the reason is to not scare people away from the Church if they are just converting, or returning - and then by the time you would be ready to hear it, the convert/revert classes are over, and there’s no one around who would realize that you didn’t know. 🤷 :rolleyes:
 
We abstain from meat on Fridays as a rule.

There were previous posters that felt that they were outside of the Church because they were never informed of the Friday Penance.

Shame on us as a Church and Church leaders for leaving the faithful in the dark about this discipline.

To all Bishops and Priests, please inform your flock. They simply want the truth!
 
Brooklyn - thank you for this explanation - I have always had trouble understanding the meaning of that passage and those words and you finally brought it home for me. The part where you say ‘Christ loves us so much, He lets us participate in the redemption of the world.’ It reminds me of something I heard the other day where a priest was saying God loves us so much, He lets us participate in salvation.
 
r4j said:
Brooklyn - thank you for this explanation - I have always had trouble understanding the meaning of that passage and those words and you finally brought it home for me. The part where you say ‘Christ loves us so much, He lets us participate in the redemption of the world.’ It reminds me of something I heard the other day where a priest was saying God loves us so much, He lets us participate in salvation.
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I admire you very much for the penances that you do. But I do hope that you’re getting spiritual direction to be sure that what you’re doing is correct. We can sometimes get carried away. But for what it’s worth, IMHO, you’re on the right path.
 
Brooklyn said:
I admire you very much for the penances that you do. But I do hope that you’re getting spiritual direction to be sure that what you’re doing is correct. We can sometimes get carried away. But for what it’s worth, IMHO, you’re on the right path.
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Oh Brooklyn - those things I do are not penances they are part of palanca letters we write for people on cursillo weekends. I was asking if they might be considered penances if I were to do them on Fridays. I was just wondering what things wold be considered penance - not eating meat is about the only one I’m famaliar with but I was wondering, does penance mean offering any kind of sacrifice?
 
r4j said:
Oh Brooklyn - those things I do are not penances they are part of palanca letters we write for people on cursillo weekends. I was asking if they might be considered penances if I were to do them on Fridays. I was just wondering what things wold be considered penance - not eating meat is about the only one I’m famaliar with but I was wondering, does penance mean offering any kind of sacrifice?
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Wow, I don’t know. I did some searching on the EWTN website, and found this:
According to the Code of Canon Law, Can. 1251, “Abstinence from eating meat or some other food according to the prescripts of the conference of bishops is to be observed on every Friday of the year unless a Friday oocurs on a day listed as a solemnity. Abstinence and fasting, however, are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.” The U.S. Conference of Bishops ruled in 1966 (“On Penance and Abstinence”) that the faithful may choose another form of penance than abstaining from meat, but did not dispense from all forms of penance on Fridays of the year, on which the Church continues to commemorate the Savior’s suffering and death. Moreover, “[a]mong the works of voluntary self-denial and personal penance…we give first place to abstinence from flesh meat.”
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ewtn.com/vexperts/showresult.asp?RecNum=303018&Forums=0&Experts=0&Days=2002&Author=&Keyword=penance+on+frida&pgnu=1&groupnum=0&record_bookmark=1&ORDER_BY_TXT=ORDER+BY+ReplyDate+DESC&start_at=

That would seem to say that what you propose is probably beyond what the bishops were thinking. Self denial, according to this excerpt, seems to be more what the bishops were looking for.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?
 
adstrinity said:
Sparticus 9:17 <—Old Testament

Mr. McStopheles 20:26. <—New Testament
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😃

I was going to refer him to p. 896 of the Bible but your response was better.
 
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